


The Promise of Light

by heliocentrics



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BEN SOLO PAIN TRAIN TOOT TOOT, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 21:36:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17251811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heliocentrics/pseuds/heliocentrics
Summary: SOLSTICE(n.) — either of the two times a year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator […] a furthest or culminating point;a turning point.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [voicedimplosives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicedimplosives/gifts).



> This fic is a long-overdue Secret Santa gift for my lovely friend (and amazing beta!) [Tamara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicedimplosives/)!!! She has been so lovely and patient with this gift and I seriously owe her the world; getting to know her (and all my amazing reylo friends) has been one of the highlights of this year. 
> 
> I was originally planning on this being a one-shot, but life got in the way so I'll be posting updates sporadically over the next few weeks. Please be patient with me as this is a (very sad) work in progress!!!

The sun never sets itself for Kylo on Korriban.

He’s not sure what he’s looking for, traversing a desert planet like this. Intel would be the official answer, and perhaps some remnant of the Sith world this planet once was, but instead his shuttle roams aimlessly over sand-choked mountains and desert plains. He outruns the sunset, keeping it just out of distance, watching the shadows of hills wax and wane underneath him. His thoughts wander parallel to the ship, departing from his mind with no destination. He thinks of the planet below him— not the first excursion he’s allowed himself at the behest of his First Order— those who have come to the remnants of tragedy to eke out a living. It’s not the first desert planet that comes to mind, not the first theater of war he remembers, the first place where scavengers live and die scrounging for portions—

But he can’t think about scavengers right now. He won’t.

The mountains roll away to reveal a small village, tucked away against the base of an old, decrepit starship, buried deep in the sand. Kylo makes a quick descent and alerts the landing crew, hoping a quick investigation of the area will clear his mind and soothe his mounting frustrations.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to think about Rey— under any other circumstances, he would gladly indulge himself in thoughts of her. But he can’t— the precarious balance established between them was broken clean, first on the failing _Supremacy_ , and again on Crait.

He clenches his fist. Even just the thought of the planet’s name, the arena for his appalling defeat, sends tendrils of hot anger down his spine and throughout his limbs, all the way down to his toes.

The shuttle shudders to a stop as it lands, the engine creaking noisily before dying altogether. It’s been months since he’s allowed any sort of maintenance on his main ship— since losing the _Silencer_ on the _Supremacy_ , he’s taken the shuttle out on any number of excursions, searching for intel he knows he won’t find, and it shows in the ship’s performance.

The anger doesn’t feel good, or empowering, the way it used to. At first it had been a blind, lost rage, like a feral cat taking its first steps. And then Snoke had smoothed the fear away, replaced it with a focused wrath he’d wielded well, for a time. But times had changed. Balance had gotten complicated, and the dark side became ever elusive to him. And that needed to change.

Didn’t it?

He rips his cloak from where it’s hanging over one of the command chairs and drapes it over his shoulders in one fluid movement, shrugging his shoulders to allow it to settle. The bay door of the shuttle descends at a painstaking speed, white vapor from the ship’s stabilizers wafting into the cockpit.

And then it’s nothing but dark desert as far as he can see. He signals for his litany of guards to stay with the ship as he descends from the ramp, leather boots sinking into the sea of sand. The wind is warm but still harsh, cutting through him and whipping his hair from his face as he walks. His saber feels heavy on his hip.

The village he’s sought out is on the horizon, between two dunes that create a small valley. He’s close enough that he can see little groups of people milling about at a makeshift market, tucked carefully into the sand. Further away, huts made of drying mud and scraps of metal rest haphazardly amongst the dunes. His fingers begin to tremble; he flexes his fist, leather creaking in his glove, as he attempts to calm himself.

After crossing through the valley, kicking up sand with every step, he finally begins to cross paths with those coming and going from the village. They give him sideways glances, or stop what they’re doing altogether to turn and stare. No one is pretending not to know him; faintly, Kylo feels a pang of diffidence, a characteristic of a man he thought had long since been dead, and suddenly wishes he had his mask again, to cover his uncomely face.

He reaches the outskirts of town, and his gaze settles on an old man with a weathered face and spotted, wrinkled hands. He sits at a stall, selling ration scraps and foodstuffs at meager prices. Kylo strides right up to the empty counter, ignoring the blatant stares of people around him. The man doesn’t speak; he only stares.

“This was a Sith homeworld,” Kylo starts, with absolutely no pretense. He’s not playing at pretending like he wants anything to do with these people; that thought sends an empowering shot of electricity through him, and he clenches his fist again.

“Yes,” the old man says. His voice savers and creaks under the stress of his age.

“And?” Kylo presses. “What happened?”

The man seems to weigh something inside of himself, silently deciding on the best course of action. Kylo could do this a different way, could look into his mind and tear him apart from the inside out, but he doesn’t. Somehow, he already knows what will happen here.

The old man makes his decision. “Peace happened. Liberation happened.” He swallows. “Balance.”

The last word takes Kylo off guard, _way_ off guard, and he physically takes a step back, stunned for a moment into silence. By now the whole market is watching their exchange, the wind through threadbare cloth banisters the only sound for miles. Kylo purses and unpurses his lips, his jaw working, and then his decision is made.

There’s no preface to what comes next, no warning for what will follow. There’s only the bright red of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, and then the man before him is cut down, little more than two lumps of sizzling flesh. There’s a collective gasp around the village, and a few indignant cries, but Kylo doesn’t let them get far enough to fight back. He cuts down the stall first, and then the next person closest to his proximity meets his lightsaber unprompted. As he hacks and slashes, he reaches out through the Force, and other villagers, silent witnesses to the massacre, begin to choke.

After his fifth kill, he stops counting, and his eyes start to burn. Any semblance of anger is gone, and now it’s only blind focus. After ten more, he’s not sure he’s in control of himself anymore— all he knows is the saber, hot in his hand, and the Force around him.

Eventually, he digs deep enough inside himself to tap into that ancient power, the dark side that permeates the core of the planet. It fills him up, body and soul, and then, seconds later, leaves him a ruin, sapping blood and bone until he’s forced to draw more and more.

In a word, it’s disappointing.

But he’s not really thinking about that. In fact, for a while, he’s not really thinking about anything. But eventually, it does seep in— emotion, feeling, the sensation but nothing solid. Distantly, it irks him— emotion had always been an integral part of the Sith way, it was the _Jedi_ who spurned emotion— but he doesn’t pay much attention to how he reacts. He only knows he’s slipping into himself, tears shredding his face and cleansing his skin, falling deep into the crevasse of Rey’s scar on his face. He screams in anguish, already mourning himself, and the dead he’s created, before the deed is done, slaughtering blindly and endlessly.

Eventually, it’s done; there’s nothing left for him to stick his blade through, nothing left to slaughter. So he turns back, sobbing through every painful step, feeling blood dry on his face, his hands, his clothes. He expected a sense of victory to come with the snap, that coming unhinged here would liberate him from the weight on his chest, from the _light_.

But it’s worse.

He knows it won’t help, but when he returns to the shuttle, he kills the guards and officers accompanying him, too.

He’s too tired to come back on board— too tired to move at all, once they’re dead. So he extinguishes his lightsaber, letting it sink into the sand, and sends his location out to a set of coordinates he remembers from the one intel briefing he’d managed to pay attention to as Supreme Leader.

When he comes back out to await his comeuppance, he collapses on the ramp, leaning against one of the stabilizers. The metal feels cool on his temple against the heat of the desert, the heat of what he’s done.

The sun sets, and far beyond the dunes, he sees the moon rise.

———

The Resistance base Rey lives on has somehow doubled in size since Kylo Ren’s arrival.

It probably only feels that way to her, between the stuffy looks over midday bowls of mash and muffled whispers of her name behind hands. She feels acutely aware of her self— words, actions, even the placement of her body— for the first time in forever, and only lets herself breathe when her cabin doors close and she collapses on the bed, tears leaking out along with that blessed sense of relief.

She hasn’t felt him in months, to be fair. Initially she had kept her mind somewhat open to him, allowing them both to experience each other’s basest thoughts and emotions, but that came with Ben’s constant prodding, looking for any semblance of full entry into her mind. She’d been less and less inclined to talk to him the more time passed, and the more she identified him as the enemy— as the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

No one tells her when he finally arrives— the uproar in the mess hall, a buzzing combination of boisterous conversation and hushed whispers, mixing facts and fantasy, speaks for itself. Her eyebrows knit together, scanning carefully over the commissary for a familiar face, when she sees Poe and Finn across from one another at the end of one of the square, four-seat tables, heads together in deep conversation. _Poe’s a commander_ , Rey thinks to herself. _If anyone knows the truth of this, it’s him._

She rushes over to their table just in time, setting her tray down on the durasteel metal of the table gently and pulling in her seat behind her. Finn gives her a brief smile and a wink, while Poe merely nods through his words in greeting.

“What happened?” she starts, not bothering with small talk.

Finn starts to open his mouth, but Poe stops him with a quick gesture of his fingers. “Rey, I don’t know if you want to hear this. I know you two have a history—“

That’s all it takes for her to know— those two words. _A history._ She sits up straighter, tucks her hands in her lap. When she scans the hall out of the corner of her eye, she notices just how many eyes are not just on their group, their table, but her in particular.

She clears her throat, shifting her focus back to Poe, trying to ignore the cold coiling in her stomach. “I want to know.”

Poe’s eyes flit quickly to Finn, who nods, and back to Rey, before he sighs, crosses his hands on the table. “Kylo Ren’s been taken into custody. Leia just sent the memo to high command.”

There’s a beat of silence through the table. Finn and Poe both carefully watch Rey, who does her best to school her features into complacency. On instinct, she reaches out through their connection, through the bond, but Ben’s still cut off from her, an impasse she cannot scale.

Instead, she focuses back to the men sitting in front of her. “Was he captured in battle? Was there a surrender?” Her mind jumped from one possible theory to the next, silently eliminating the more dramatic ideas as she solemnly took Ben’s character into account.

Poe shrugs. “Not sure. All the note said was that the Supreme Leader was in custody. They’re already in contact with the First Order for an armistice, though we know how Hux might respond to that— he’s probably getting his first real taste of power right about now.”

Rey begins to pout, tracing invisible circles on the table’s countertop, when Finn shifted in his seat, covertly commanding their attention. “There’s rumors, though.”

“Finn—“ Poe starts.

“Apparently one of Rose’s old mechanic friends was on the landing dock when he came in. There was an exchange, or drop-off, or _something_ on another dock, or maybe another planet. But, anyway, they said they saw a whole battalion cart him off a transport, still in his black, covered from head to toe in someone else’s blood.”

“It’s just a rumor,” Poe was quick to dismiss Finn, but the seed had been planted in Rey’s head— thick red blood flooding his face, hair dripping crimson onto a jet-black uniform. Dark clouds rolling in to frame the scene, rain falling in the background, his lightsaber tight in his grip, lips pulled back in a sneering growl. She shivered.

Poe must notice that, because he leans closer to her, easing into a more casual tone. “You know how gossip flies in these bases— remember when people thought you and I were dating for, like, a week straight?” A light laugh dies on his tongue; the humor of the situation is lost on Finn and Rey both. “Ren probably just had a cut on his head and someone misheard the story. Word travels quickly, but we’ll learn the truth soon enough.”

Finn nods, joining in after a swift kick under the table from Poe. “Yeah. Someone will clear this all up for us, and we’ll know what happened. It’s just gonna take time.”

He swallows, smiling. “We’ll know. Just wait.”

———

And she does.

Rey waits patiently for information from high command, a public announcement on Ben’s capture, or surrender. She waits for Leia to send for her, the only other Force user on the base. The only person who knows Ben Solo better than she does.

But the call never comes.

Hours pass, then days. But the edge never comes off; at dinner, in her rooms, repairing ships in the bases’ main hangar, she’s always thinking of him. Her end of the connection stays hot, waiting endlessly for a response that never comes. She chews her fingernails over half-eaten plates— for the first time in her life, she finds herself turning away food.

And so patience runs out.

She sits on the single lumpy cot in her quarters, anxiously waiting for the peace of meditation to come to her. Deep breaths of stale air, in and out, balance her lungs but not her mind. Thoughts still race through her, new ones forming before she can address those already taking up space. Nervously, she reaches out, waiting for that other piece of the bond to light up with feeling and thought, but the connection between them stays dead.

 _Where are you, Ben?_ she reaches out blindly, sending whispered words through a lifeless bond. _What’s happened?_

The empty cot across from her is the only response when she opens her eyes again, feeling her words float down the connection aimlessly. She’d been living alone since Rose has started spending nights with Finn. The loneliness is stifling, too reminiscent of Jakku. Even through meditation she can’t help squirming through the empty space, trying to achieve some semblance of comfortable bliss despite her racing thoughts. Soon enough she’s forced to reject the practice entirely, and pushes her legs out in front of her to lean her back against the wall, a hand sweeping through her hair in blind exasperation.

Rey knows she won’t sleep. She won’t eat. Her hands are beginning to shake too badly to get any work or training done. She thought the anxiety would eventually pass, that with each new day, she’d forget about Ben, worry less and less until he was a mere blip in her stream of consciousness.

But then, that had never been the case. It had been a year since she’d seen him, months since she’d felt him at all, and he hadn’t just ceased to exist in her mind. He still took up space; she still knew him. HIs presence on the base had only exacerbated that feeling.

Suddenly, the anxiety of that is overwhelming. Ben Solo, a man who’d meant so little to her so long ago, was taking up space inside of her, and she hardly cared— in fact, a part of her welcomed it, the quiet belonging that came with worrying about someone. The blind, empty trust that came with it— even if Ben wasn’t worrying about her, too, it was still belonging.

Rey’s always been a problem solver. It’s in her blood to fix things, to make things better. All that scavenging and scrounging left no room for luxuries that she didn’t find herself.

So she knows this can’t go on; there’s no getting better without making a change. She knows there’s only one solution to this. ———

To her surprise, the prison sector is mostly empty at this hour.

There’s the occasional guard or orderly patrolling the halls, but only one cell— a single durasteel door, doubly locked— is occupied, and it’s protected by an entire slew of blaster-wielding Resistance soldiers, most likely expertly trained in the art of subduing a Force-wielding Supreme Leader. When Rey arrives at his door, she smiles at faces both recognized and unknown. They must know her— strangers recognizing her face is a feeling she’s still getting used to— because they dip their heads slightly in deference.

She doesn’t bother beating around the bush. “I want to speak to him.”

The senior guard must have been prepared for this; he steps forward solemnly and gives her a certain kind of smile she instantly detests, like a parent scolding a child who didn’t even know they’d done wrong. “I’m sorry, Rey, but General Organa has only granted access to Ren’s cell to ranking members of high command. I’m afraid we can’t let you enter.”

She should have expected it, but the spurn still sends a jolt of indignance through her, her pride turning to wrath.

“I don’t think you understand.” Rey swallows, fingers beginning to tremble, hot frustration coating her voice and bringing a spring of tears to her eyes. “I need to speak with him; Leia must have made a mistake—“

“There’s no mistake.” The guard’s voice is firm now, less forgiving. “I don’t want this to become a breach of security, Rey. Please…”

But by now Rey’s made up her mind. Her wrath has reared its ugly head, and rather than turning it loose upon the people standing before her, she sighs, steels herself, and forces her voice to find calm, her mind to find power.

“You will open this door and allow me access.”

The main guard stands up straighter. “I will open this door and allow you access.”

When he turns and thumbs the access key, the other guards barely blink.

The door whizzes open, but Rey doesn’t look in— she can’t, not yet. She takes one step forward, then another. With that same cool, channeled concentration, she lifts her chin and looks again at the main guard. “You will release me when I knock twice, not before. You will not tell anyone.”

The guard parrots the command back to her, back still ramrod straight, but by this point she’s not paying attention to him; she’s not paying attention to anyone but the man across the room from her.

They’re separated by a long sheet of transparisteel, interrupted by the occasional screw or glued line keeping it in place. His cell is cramped, especially for a man of his size, with little more than and a cot and sink. He sits on the floor now, head leaning against one of the three white walls, knees up to his chest, hands in his lap. He wears a tan-colored Resistance-issue jumpsuit— too short for him, as his ankles stick out between the pant legs and pair of moth-eaten brown socks. Black hair hangs unclean and lank between his eyes, a broken halo of mussed, greasy strands. If he had been soaked in blood upon his arrival, like the rumors had told her, he shows no sign of it now.

Initially, she waits for a twisted quip from Ben, something about her mind trick or the Jedi way, but he stays quiet, meeting her gaze upon her initial entry, and then turning away. She’s not sure what to say, how to introduce herself to him again, how to fill the space, so instead she sits on the matching white tile that occupies her side of the room, her side of the transparisteel wall.

She had expected a fight. A caged lion, thrashing against the walls, chained at the neck, every inch a fighting, spitting ball of wrath. Instead she finds only a quiet resignation, head bowed in meek surrender, any life or energy sucked out of him. It’s an emotion she doesn’t recognize in Ben. It scares her; it saddens her. Either way, her heart grows heavy, and her ribs feel tight around her.

The silence stretches between them for an uncountable number of minutes. Rey’s vision flits from Ben’s face to a chipped tile on the floor he sits on, picking at a fingernail; Ben keeps his eyes glued to the toe of his Resistance-issue sock— they didn’t even give him the dignity of _shoes_ , Rey thinks— somehow both focused and dazed. Even now, through sheer proximity, she can feel his echoes through the bond— muted, defeated, but not yet dead. His thoughts are like off-beat hiccups through their connection— one-word reports on whatever seems to pass through his mind. At one point Rey thinks she hears the word sorry.

“You know you don’t have to apologize,” she says, shifting from leg to another. “You don’t have to say anything.”

Ben’s eyes stay trained on his sock toe— Rey notices he’s kept his eyes on a stray thread poking out from the seam. “Okay.”

Rey swallows. “I mean— if you want to talk, too, I’m here.” She sighs, eyes traveling skyward in an effort to call on divine help to save her from her own social clumsiness. “I don’t know what happened— I haven’t since the bond, you know— well, if you need it to be said, aloud, I’m here.”

“Okay.”

She sighs, sensing the fact that this is going nowhere. And yet that ball of anxiety that’s begun setting up shop in the pit of her stomach is going nowhere, so stays on the floor, still picking at her fingers as she looks around.

“Are you okay? Like, they’ve been feeding you and everything? You’re not hurt?”

Ben only nods solemnly in response. “Three meals a day.”

Rey swallows. The silence is stifling; she can’t avoid the obvious.

“I know you probably need time to process— whatever comes next. I can respect that.” She can’t bear to look at him; her eyes shift back to that same chipped tile. “But— I’m worrying. All the time now.” She can feel his eyes on her, distant but curious, and she meets them. It’s the first time they make eye contact— _really_ make eye contact— and she sees it all: the pain, the anguish, the fading conflict, and with it, a defeat she can’t describe.

Tears spring to her eyes unabated as she holds his gaze. “The bond. I don’t know why things stopped between us. I was alone. And, I—“ She swallows again. She doesn’t want to reveal the tumult of her emotions over the past year, the anger and the ache that brought her to this moment. She doesn’t want to say _I missed you_. So all that comes to her lips is “I worried.”

Ben blinks, his eyes dropping an inch. “I didn’t think you wanted me there.”

Rey shakes her head. “I never minded you. I just didn’t want you relying on me.” She wants to reach over, to grab his hand and show him she means this, but the transparisteel wall still separates them; she stills herself regretfully. “You remember what I said on the Supremacy, in that lift together.” Distantly, her memories remind her of his eyes on hers, a lifetime ago. He had cradled her in his own gaze, as if he was taking every word she said and holding it close to him. Then, she had been asking the impossible, but he’d listened all the same.

“I still want to help you, if you’ll have me. But I can’t do it all on my own.”

Ben only scoffs, finally breaking her gaze. “I can’t talk about this right now, Rey.”

“But can’t you?” She leans forward, eyes trained on him. “Snoke is gone; the First Order is far away from here.” A pause, pregnant with regret. “So is Luke. Come back.”

“It’s not the First Order I’m worried about,” Kylo says, head leaning back against the walls. “They’re not the ones who have me locked up.”

Rey shakes her head, eyebrows knitting together. “I’m sure it’s just a precaution. When they hear the truth of things— the truth of what’s happened, the truth that _I know_ — they’ll have to set you free.”

“No, Rey.” His voice is soft, almost pleading. “I know what’s coming. It’s not worth it, to think any differently.”

The tears come freely now, a few streaming down her cheeks. Her voice whittles down to just a whisper. “We’re still fighting, side by side. My back is against yours, Ben, right now. It’s just different. We’re fighting together for this— this time, for you.”

She can feel a tired anger mounting in him as his position shifts. “Is this what our life is then, day by day, years whiling away while it’s us against the galaxy? Constantly defending ourselves, our mere existence, under the pretense of a _fight_?” He looks away. “I’m done fighting. Let it end.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t know what to say to any of it— his words, the way he looks at her, the utter defeat seeping into every bone in his body. _He wants to die here_ , Rey realizes, shaking. _There’s no use convincing him otherwise_. She can’t process that right now, so she glides over it, onto the only thing that can still her nerves for the time being.

“If this is the end, at least let me feel you.” Tentatively, she opens the bond, nudging him gently on his end. “There’s no use pretending. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

Ben turns away, huddling against the cold metal of the wall. His eyes shut as if it’s a mercy. “Stop. Please, Rey.”

Rey shakes her head, biting at her cheek to keep her tears under control. “No, Ben. Let yourself have this. Let _us_ have this.”

One moment passes, then another. Then Ben sighs, and when Rey nudges again in test, she meets his mind unrestrained, untethered. It’s _dark_ , darker than she remembers, and strangely empty— those base thoughts and emotions run quiet but rampant through an empty landscape of black space. But it’s open, the bond bright and alive again, and for the first time in a year, she can breathe.

She offers a smile to him; though he’s not looking, she knows he feels it. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t have to; she feels his mind soften through their connection, as if a weight has been pulled away.

———

It hurts, but it is better than either of their alternatives, and so it becomes routine.

Rey spends most of her days working— repairing ships, she tells him later, as a mechanic. It’s well enough she can’t visit him in the daytime; his mornings are spent with a guard bringing him meals and checking on him what feels like once every ten minutes. After that, afternoons are chock-full of interrogations and visits from various Resistance personnel. Commander Dameron is a regular attendant, but he doesn’t say much, instead tracing circles on the tile with his foot or deferring to the lower-ranking officer that almost always accompanied him, interrogating Kylo in a slew of formalities. Kylo distantly remembers a childhood of odd meetings with Poe, seeing him at one family gathering or another. With both of their parents steeped in the extremism of the New Republic, then the Resistance, it had been hard to avoid one another. And now, here they were, on opposite sides of a years-long war: one winner, one loser.

Then, once the sun has set and the slew of guards covering his cell has dwindled to a handful, Rey creeps in, placing herself on the tile across from them, and spends the night in his cell, on the opposite side of the transparisteel. They hardly speak, hardly do anything, but when she’s there, sleep comes easier, and in time, so does the Force.

It’s silly, something he can’t quite name, but just knowing she’s there, across from him, breathing the same air and connected to the same Force, makes something in his chest relax, like a snake uncoiling from around his heart. He breathes easier, moves easier. And he feels the same in her, too.

It’s wordless, but the tension between them dissipates soon enough. It helps that the bond is open again, their thoughts and feelings flowing freely between their linked minds. He can feel a shift in the Force when she meditates on base, feels sweat bead on his forehead as she trains with her saber in an empty hangar. It gives him an existence outside of four walls and a cot, a life outside of waiting for the doors to open and a uniformed officer to question him on the inner workings of the First Order. It’s something to expect, something to anticipate. It’s something to live for.

And, somehow, at the end of the day, she still finds it in herself to come to him, a sole visitor in his insulated little prison, in the annals of the base. She comes, forgoing a comfortable sleep in her own bed, in her own quarters, just to be with him. He waits for her appearances to peter out, for her to one day simply stop visiting, but still, every day, she comes.

One day he asks why.

“What do you mean?” is all she responds with, still waist-deep in the throes of meditation on the Force, her face peaceful and serene in thought. He almost hates asking the question, to break her from her quiet concentration, but when her eyes slide open and he sees the glowing hazel of her irises, soft and warm, he doesn’t regret it.

“You have friends here. You have a life; you have meaning. I know you spend all day working on ships or training, eating in the mess hall with people you know— people you _really_ know. I can feel it when you see them, or talk to them.”

Rey nods. “Yes.”

She’s waiting for him to continue, he realizes. “I just don’t know why you don’t spend these nights with them.” He breaks her gaze, crossing and uncrossing his hands as he glances around his cell, his voice dropping to a mumble in the back of his throat. “Why you’re wasting your time on me.”

“It’s not a waste,” Rey corrects quickly, leaning forward. “I’m not coming here out of pity, or sympathy, Ben. It’s not a chore for me.” She seems angry, he realizes, at his own insinuation. “Never think I’m doing this for someone else. I’m not.”

“So what?” Ben says, his own anger— small and fading, but still there— rising to meet hers. “You enjoy starving yourself of any attention? Keeping yourself from the people you know best— for what?”

“Ben,” she says, and that one word stills him, the same way it did on that lift on the _Supremacy_ , what feels like years ago. “I’m here for you. I _want_ to be with you, now— to help you. But this is for me, too.” She pauses, swallows, looks away long enough to compose herself. “I love the people I surround myself. Finn, and Rose, and Poe— they’re more than I can ask for in friends. They’re my family now. But there’s a limit. They have their own lives, too. Finn and Rose are lovely together, and I wouldn’t want them— _separated_ , you know— but—”

“I understand,” Ben interrupts, reminded distantly of his childhood, of two parents he loved separately, and who loved him separately, too. “You lose time with them both when they’re together— when they’re _happy_ together.”

Rey nods solemnly, lost in thought again. “But I don’t know if I would choose to be with them now, even if I could.”

“What does that mean?”

Her gaze slides up to his; he almost spots a spark of dry humor there, but then it’s gone. “You can’t possibly be that dull, Ben Solo.”

He draws a blank, heat rising in his cheeks. “What?”

She doesn’t speak, at first. In place of a response, she scoots forward, still sitting cross-legged on the tile floor. As she does, she raises her eyebrows, and through the bond she signals him to scoot closer as well, until they’re inches away from each other, separated only by the thin layer of transparisteel bisecting their connection. Her hand, fingers slim and skin weathered, comes up to rest against the clear steel, and when she looks down at his hand, resting against his prison-issue pants, the implication comes to him.

Slowly, as slow as that day on the _Supremacy_ , when he’d come to her in tears and he’d told her she wasn’t alone, he raises his hand. And just like that day, his hand trembles, but hers is still and sure. And when his fingers finally connect with the wall, mirroring hers, he feels a sudden push of the Force— her Force— against his skin, and knows.

“No one else knows _this_ but you, Ben. It’s not just the Force, not just the fact that we’re the only ones left. Leia doesn’t understand it— Luke didn’t either.” Ben feels a pang of emotion at the mention of his family, but Rey presses on. “But I do. And you do, too.”

An amalgamation of their memories together— his interrogation, their battle in the snow, Force bonds and fingers grazing against each other, fighting side by side, and a year of stony silence— whips across his vision.

“I don’t know what it is, Ben.” Rey’s voice has quieted to a murmur, but he can still hear her loud and clear. “But I know you feel it, too. And I’m not afraid of it. I know, somehow, that it’s meant to be this way.”

He does feel it, though something curling in his gut bars him from saying so. Instead, he presses his forehead to the transparisteel, and sighs, breath fogging the clear. “I wish I could feel you right now.” On instinct, an image flits through his brain and down the bond to her— the steel melting away, his hand reaching across the barrier, fingers entwining with hers. The feeling of warm skin against his fingers.

Rey smiles, though it’s twinged with melancholy. “Me, too.”

He wishes for a lot more, too, but he remembers his place then— not just with her, but in this prison, in the galaxy itself. An existence resigned to his confinements, a life cut short by his own terrible actions. The punishment he deserves, he anticipates. Instinctually, Ben leans away, just a fraction of an inch. Rey must feel what he feels, just an inkling of it trickling down the bond, because she sighs, and leans away too, a vague disappointment— a different kind of resignation— filtering through to him.

But they stay close like that, for the rest of the night, never straying more than a few inches apart.

———

Before Rey decides to leave in the weak light of morning, anticipating the looming guard rotation, she finds herself dozing with her back against the transparisteel, fingers tracing between the wall and the floor. When she turns around, wiping sleep from her eyes, she sees Ben in the same position, his cheek turned to rest against the wall. She stands to go then, moving as quietly as she can, and as she turns, the pads of her fingers graze against that spot where his cheek meets the clear. His eyes quiver slightly under his lids, his lashes fluttering occasionally; other than that, he looks calm, almost untroubled, in sleep. She wishes, distantly, for one last chance to run his hand through his hair, across his face, against his scar. She wishes things were different.

But she had wishes on Jakku, too.

So she turns away from him, strides to the door, knocks twice, and leaves.


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Perhaps, this whole time, he’d tricked himself into thinking that she came to him because she couldn’t see him for what he really was, that she may have forgotten him. But this new truth has scared him, shocked him. That perhaps the very reason she’s come, night after night, is_ because _she knows his true nature, knows him better than she knows herself. She’s seen his future, and seen his past. What else does one need to calculate the_ true nature _of a person—especially a person like him?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [Becca](https://twitter.com/torra_doza/) for betaing this chapter, and for Tamara for being so patient with this gift!! Hopefully the next chapter takes less than a month to post lol

One day, just before Ben’s evening meal, Poe comes in alone, the durasteel door closing behind him. He doesn’t meet Ben’s gaze, doesn’t include any sort of preface to what he’s here to do, here to say. Every time Poe comes to him, Ben notes, a cloud of anxiety, perhaps embarrassment, seems to permeate his movements, as if he’s not sure how to act around Ben Solo. 

Today, though he still won’t meet his gaze, Poe is all business. He only takes a few moments of pause before getting through an apparently pre-prepared spiel, gesturing slightly here and there. “The Resistance has been in contact with high-ranking officers of the First Order, including General Hux himself, who’s assumed power since your... _absconsion_. They’ve not been willing to initiate any sort of exchange of prisoners, or barter for your freedom. Therefore, we’ve been left with limited options going forward.”

_Kill me and be done with it_ , Ben thinks. He turns his head away, readjusting his position on the cell floor until his elbows are balanced precariously on the tips of his knees. 

“Inititally, members of high command had suggested a full tribunal at the seat of the New Republic, once it’s reinstated at the end of the war. You’d be tried for war crimes, amongst other charges, as Supreme Leader of the First Order—a title you apparently still hold, according to General Hux.” 

That gives Ben pause—there’d be absolutely no reason for Hux to discard the title of Supreme Leader, leaving it for him. Hux is power-hungry, always has been, always will be. And he’d never been fond of Ben. His mind turns slowly, searching for the strategy Hux is testing here, with this move—or lack thereof.

Poe continues. “The evidence of these crimes is ample; you’d be found guilty and sentenced to death by execution, perhaps a life imprisonment if the court was feeling generous. But, due to recent events, General Leia Organa has suggested an… _alternate_ option.”

At the sound of his mother’s name, Ben tenses, shifting in place. He hadn’t forgotten about his mother’s presence on the base; in fact, it’d been apparent in almost every action trickling down to his cell, from the interrogations from officers to the meals the guards would bring him each day. He could imagine Leia standing over durasteel trays in the main kitchens, presiding over the creation of his breakfast— _no, don’t give him breadroot, he’ll just turn it away; grainmush isn’t his favorite, but he’s eaten it before_ —but it was probably more realistic to assume she’d had nothing to do with it. 

“It _would_ be beneficial—for us and for you—if you were to… _surrender_ important information about the First Order to us, in exchange for clemency.”

_Clemency_. The word hangs in the air like an odor. Poe doesn’t like saying it; Ben can tell that much from his tone. Truth be told, Ben doesn’t like the sound of the word either— it’s too vague, But he decides to take the bait nonetheless.

“What kind of clemency?”

Poe stands up straighter. “So you’d take the deal? If we offered it?” 

Immediately, Ben backtracks. “I never said that.”

“You said—”

For the first time since his arrival on the Resistance base, Ben’s temper flares, just enough to get him talking again. “It doesn’t matter what I said. Clemency is just about the vaguest term you could have used for whatever this ‘deal’ might entail. So explain the deal. The ‘clemency’.” The more he says it, the more the word tastes acidic in his tongue, sits wrong with him in the pit of his stomach.

Poe sighs, runs a hand through the thick curls of his hair. “Nothing’s set in stone. The decision is out of the hands of high command. But… General Organa has been envisioning a barter with the New Republic that includes a full pardon of your charges and complete protection from any outside actors.”

One beat of silence passes, then two. Ben keeps his eyes on Poe for a moment, then drops them, releasing a shuddering breath. Inside, he searches for the one thing eluding him for all these years—hope, real hope, pure and bright. He pulls at it, begging for its easy arrival, but it only comes faintly, and reluctantly. On the other side of his consciousness, he can still feel the ghost of Snoke pulling back, threatening to rip his expectations in two. _You admitted defeat, there on the sand in Korriban. Take your punishment the way your grandfather did—the way_ I _did. The way every great Sith Lord ever has._

Another sigh, and then he pulls away, bringing his wavering gaze back up to meet Poe’s expectant one. “Okay.”

Poe doesn’t bother to hide his confusion. “Okay, what?”

“Just ‘okay’.” Ben swallows, readjusts his position on the icy tiling of his cell floor. “The decision is seemingly out of my hands, and out of yours, too from the way you’ve described it. I don’t believe I’m in any position to dictate.”

Poe keeps his eyes on Ben, through the transparisteel. Then his brows furrow, and he leans forward. “I don’t get you.” Ben has half a mind to interrupt, to stop him before he can launch into a diatribe, but Poe just keeps going. “I’ve known you as long as I can remember, and I’ve never gotten you. You had a family, a future. A power most people would kill for. I don’t understand how you could just… throw that all away.”

Once the quiet settles again, Poe seemingly finished, Ben tries to formulate an explanation, a story that will satisfy, or at least pacify, the man across from him. But he can’t, so instead he settles for the truth. 

“I didn’t throw anything away,” he murmurs, just loud enough for Poe to hear. “It all fell away— the family and the future both. Any semblance of support. So when the power called, I just… gave in. I had nothing else.” Ben swallows, and memories resurface of distant fights in the drawing room, a lightsaber igniting over his sleeping form. “If anyone was fond of _throwing things away_ , it wasn’t me.”

“Please,” Poe mutters back, but Ben can hear his voice drop, just for a second. He’s been made aware of the difference, has had it brought to the forefront of his mind. Ben knows Poe had lost his mother young, and subsequently lost his father in a different sort of way. But another family had stepped in, a net of people that became the Resistance, a net that included Ben’s own mother. But not Ben.

“You’ve said what you came here to say, I think,” Ben interjects Poe’s silent train of thought, suddenly tired with this conversation, with Poe’s presumption, with his own stirring thoughts, with the stifling feeling in the room. “And I’ve said my bit, so…”

“So.” Poe pushes off from where he leans against the durasteel wall, ending the word with an air of finality. “I suppose I’ll be in contact with you going forward about what the General decides.”

_Not the General_ , he thinks to himself as Poe leaves, encoding the door shut behind him and re-isolating Ben. _But she’s not Leia either. She’s not_ Mother _._

_Maybe she never was._

———

Rey still comes to visit that night, entering his cell without pretense—though she keeps her concerned gaze glued to him—and sitting cross-legged on the floor to meditate. Ben tries to find a way to talk to her about _this_ , about the sudden possibility of freedom Poe has waved just out of reach, and it takes him the better part of their first few minutes together for him craft an explanation.

“Poe came to visit” is what Ben chooses to start with. It takes a moment for Rey to bring herself out of meditation, taking a long sigh before her eyes slide open, meeting his. 

“I figured he was a frequent visitor of yours,” she mumbles, repositioning herself until her legs are folded underneath her.

“Not really; he was usually accompanied by another, until today.” As if transported back to that moment, he can feel his gaze grow distant, a recollection of their shared encounter filtering through his memory. “I figured he would have told you.”

Rey shakes her head. “Poe’s high command; I’m usually doing repairs in the base’s main hangar. Our paths rarely cross professionally—in fact, I haven’t seen him at all today.” She swallows, picking at a loose cuticle on her finger. “Finn told me at dinner that he’s been stuck in meetings since this afternoon.”

Ben’s heart jumps up in his chest at the end of her sentence. _Meetings all day_. About this, no doubt. About him. 

“What happened?” Rey asks, leaning forward, her brow furrowed. The concern is painted plainly on her face. 

Ben can only sigh, leaning back against the cold metal wall he’s been stationed against for the past few days. He hates that she’s worrying about this—hates that she’s been dragged into this entire ordeal at all. But he knows she’ll find out the truth eventually, if he doesn’t just come right out with it.

“He said they’re considering a deal for me,” he admits, avoiding her gaze. “That they could grant me clemency.”

“Clemency?” Rey echoes, and even with her in his periphery, Ben can see her face start to light up, optimism and expectation pouring from her in contagious waves. “Ben, that’s amazing. That could—that could change everything.”

“It could.”

“I mean—your freedom—” Rey shakes her head, unable to fathom the impossible. “It would mean so much.”

_Would it?_ Ben bites back the retort, shoving down his own pessimism, but the sentiment still lingers. He looks away, shoving his fingers through his hair, shifting in place. “I don’t know.”

Rey’s taken notice of his change; she cocks her head in confusion. “Isn’t that what you want? To be free?”

He’s resisted that growing seed of darkness festering in the pit of his stomach, resisted it even when Poe had initially come to speak with him, but in this moment Ben can’t find the energy to push it away. “It isn’t about what I want.” His voice is soft but commanding against the unforgiving metal of his four walls. “It’s about what destiny commands—what my legacy commands.”

“What legacy?” Rey asks, sounding incredulous. “The legacy of your grandfather? Ben, the past is the past. You can’t let it repeat like this. Anakin Skywalker died in your uncle’s arms, but he died redeemed. He died a hero; he died _light_.”

“And what am I?” Ben bites out, defeat turning itself over to that growing rage. “Am I _light_ to you? Am I a hero? Was Anakin a hero when he captured my mother, held her with hostility as she watched her planet collapse into nothing? Was he a hero when he slaughtered younglings, let the Republic and the Jedi Order collapse, let a man like Palpatine rule over the Galaxy like a madman?”

“You weren’t a hero when you killed your father,” Rey replies calmly; it’s meant to cut him, and it cuts deep. Ben starts, shifting back just an inch, as if to avoid the hurt altogether, but still it lashes him. “You certainly weren’t a hero when you destroyed a government, threw the galaxy into disarray in the name of ‘order’. And I don’t think you’re acting like a hero now.”

He wants her to leave, for the first time since she’d begun arriving nightly. He doesn’t want to see her like this, ripping away layer after layer of him until his true form is exposed to her. Perhaps, this whole time, he’d tricked himself into thinking that she came to him because she couldn’t see him for what he really was, that she may have forgotten him. But this new truth has scared him, shocked him. That perhaps the very reason she’s come, night after night, is _because_ she knows his true nature, knows him better than she knows herself. She’s seen his future, and seen his past. What else does one need to calculate the _true nature_ of a person—especially a person like him? _Yes_ , he decides, _she should leave, and not come back. It’s better for them both this way._

“But I’ve seen the light in you, Ben.”

Against his better judgment, Ben rides his instincts, and lifts his eyes up to meet hers. Rey’s gaze is honest, sincere, almost pleading. 

“You’re wrong,” he rebukes her, but his voice is weak, just a whisper, a pitiful defense of a truth he’s not convinced of.

“I’m not,” Rey replies, not unkindly. Her words are strong, her tone clear, almost commanding. But still she’s pleading with him, pleading with a man unconvinced by his own quality, his own self, and it shows. 

“You saved my life, that day on the _Supremacy_ ,” she continues, unrelenting. In an instant, the memory of that day rushes back to him—the hard feeling of the floor beneath his knee as he made to stand above Rey, silent with tears streaking her glowing cheeks. The last command Snoke had given him; the last one he’d obeyed. Supreme concentration, schooling his face into a mask of aloof indifference, and then a blast of blue light, the smell of seared flesh. A fight, still burning in his muscles. A proposal, heat on his tongue. And then their goodbye, later, his eyes flashing up to hers with pleading, dice in his hand, all broken and wrong.

He thinks he must not reply because he doesn’t know what to say.

“You might not see it, Ben,” Rey says in place of his own reply, “but I do. It’s bright, and I think it deserves to be fostered, not shut away. You’ve spurned it for too long.”

“You’re hardly one to speak on the nature of light,” Ben grits out, his resistance slowly wearing down.

“Maybe,” Rey replies, her tone almost indifferent, uncaring, despite her words. “But I do know of the promise of it. The bittersweet pain of waiting for a light that never comes, and of the shining sun that replaces it. I know a thing or two about finding hope and love in places and forms not often looked for. And I see that now.”

Finally, the last vestiges of his resolve have withered away, and he crumples, crumbles. “It’s hard, Rey,” he whimpers, face in his hands. He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, as if to stop the tears from flowing, but it’s futile. “I’ve tried. I’ve tried my whole life. But it’s _hard_.”

“I know,” Rey replies softly, soothingly. Her forehead nearly touches the transparisteel between them, and in that moment Ben wants nothing more than to hold her hand, feel her skin against hers, allow himself this semblance of comfort. “I know how it feels, to try and resist that _pull_. It’s hard for anyone like us; it would be impossible alone.” She pauses, and for a moment the only sound are Ben’s hushed, sobbing breaths. “But I can help you. You can help me. We can find that balance together.”

_Balance._ That same terrible word, teasing him all these years. “What if we can’t? What if it’s not meant to be found?”

Rey chokes out a laugh, but it falls flat. “The Force knows, I think. If balance is meant to be found, we’ll find it.”

Ben can’t find anything to say to that; the events of the day have left him emotionally drained, and he can feel that turmoil give way to a deep exhaustion that settles in his muscles, in his bones. His head leans back against the metal wall, and, once his breath is under control, and the worst of his tears have subsided, closes his eyes, letting the fatigue of the day—of his life—overtake him.

Rey must notice this, because she seems to relax, too, leaning back and stretching out. “We don’t have to dwell on this, not if you don’t want to. But think about it—the deal. Don’t say no right away. I can’t force you to take it, but…” Ben can hear Rey sigh, can imagine the way it rolls through her shoulders, as if her whole body is breathing with her. “But I’ll be here, as long as it takes.”

Silence stretches between them, this time more comfortable, and when Ben finally finds sleep, the first truly restful sleep he’s had since arriving here, he dreams of a different life, far away from here. He dreams of her, of course. And he dreams of peace.

———

In the morning, as dawn breaks across the horizon, far above the lower levels of the base, Rey rouses herself from a light doze and, after a stifled yawn and a hand rubbed across her eyes, leaves Ben’s sleeping form in his quiet, empty cell and heads towards the ground level. She has a shift down at the main hangar in an hour or so; one of the main X-Wings they’d been using for surveillance missions on the planet had sprung an engine leak late last afternoon, and it would take the better part of the day for her to fix it. She figured she could hop in the ‘fresher and get a quick breakfast before starting on it, but… something else calls to her.

The planet the Resistance had aptly chosen as their new hub of operations after Crait is not particularly Force sensitive; during Rey’s meditations, she’d been able to tap into the shared energy of the planet and the life that prospered on it, but nothing of substance beyond that. Leia had initially claimed to find some sort of inner communion with the planet when they had first landed, but Rey had not. Secretly, she concluded that whatever link the General felt with this planet was purely sentimental, after watching her own planet die. 

Rey had tried to imagine how she would feel if she had watched Jakku die, shrinking and then exploding into millions of little pieces, lives upon lives lost in the blink of an eye. Part of her would feel sad, she thought, but not mournful, or melancholic. A dark part of her she tried to ignore could admit that there would be a smug satisfaction to watching the desert die. _It hadn’t been a home,_ Rey had thought, after Leia’s lengthy recounting of how Alderaan had perished. _Jakku had been a prison, little more than a holding cell. A cage, before I allowed myself to be set free._

Still, she submitted to that feeling inside her, driven purely by an instinct in her gut, separate from the Force. Bypassing the stairs down to the mess hall, and to her quarters, she took the lifts all the way up to the planet’s surface, where little more than a slate gray building—concealing an emergency escape hangar—showed any sign of habitation for miles around. This was a lush, green planet—greener than anything Rey had seen since Takodana. A sprawling mountain range dominated the opposite side of the planet, where most of the planet’s population dwelled, and its vast plains lay mostly abandoned, save the occasional village or country estate. Rey hadn’t understood why the inhabitants of this planet had flocked to the mountains when they had lush green plains, sweeping rivers and quaint waterfalls tucked away in rolling hillsides, a home Rey would have killed for on Jakku. But after Leia had showed her old hollows of her destroyed home, a part of her could see the desire to return to what you’ve always known; Alderaan had been known for its mountain ranges, and sometimes, when she was afraid or lost, Rey craved the feeling of sand beneath her shoes, rising with the sun, baking in the heat as she scavenged through the desert.

On instinct, Rey finds herself drawn to the shore of the lake that borders the base’s hangar, surrounded by spindly trees and grass that grows to her waist and sways in the quiet morning wind. The greenery clears by the water’s edge, and Rey settles herself right at the border where soft, loamy dirt becomes dense, damp mud. She can hear bulabirds singing on the branches of trees that surround the berm, the quiet splash of fish moving in the water beneath her. The wind floats down to her, lifting her hair up and whipping it gently around her face and neck. In this moment, she feels enveloped by the beauty of this place, of this planet. Looking out at the clear blue sky, the sweeping green grass around her, she’s reminded distantly of Takodana, where her and Ben first met, and D’Qar, the site of the first Resistance base she’d found. Despite their cruel, unforgiving landscapes, she remembers Crait, and Jakku, too. They were beautiful in their own way, bleeding reds and soft oranges of salt and sand leaving strange imprints on her memory. 

She loved this galaxy, she realizes. She loves it still. She wants to save it, just like everyone else in the Resistance. And she wants Ben to love it, too. 

_He deserves this,_ she tells herself, fingers combing through short tufts of grass. _He deserves to see what I see, love what I love. He deserves the morning sun on his face, wind in his hair, grass beneath his feet. He can, and he will. It will just take time._

Suddenly, the comlink on her hip beeps— someone inside is signaling, probably informing her about her upcoming shift. She’s suddenly reminded of Poe, of what Ben said about their meeting. Of Leia. 

_It won’t happen on its own,_ Rey thinks. _It has to be fought for, this freedom. And he won’t fight for it himself._ She lifts herself from the dirt and grass, wiping her hands on her trousers as she walks back toward the base. _But he wants it, even if he doesn’t know it._ I _want it for him._

She knows what she has to do. 

———

Rey finds Poe in his makeshift office on one of the lower levels, where the rest of high command lives and works. The room is small, with room for little more than a desk and chair, with datapads strewn about on otherwise empty shelves. Poe jumps from his seat when he sees her enter, an easy smile already painted on his face.

“Rey,” he starts genially, winding around the desk to meet her at the door. “I’ve been meaning to speak to you. I know the mechanics are looking for you down at the hangar, but—”

“I’ll be down there in a moment,” Rey interrupts. “We need to talk.”

Poe sinks back into his seat, scrubbing a hand over his face. “It’s about Kylo Ren, isn’t it?” There’s no lilt at the end of his sentence; it’s hardly a question.

Rey swallows, takes a moment to retrace her thoughts. _Of course he would know. Even with the mind tricks on the guards, the prison halls are still monitored by security cameras. Ben’s own cell might be recorded._ At that, a flush of pink creeps up into Rey’s cheeks. 

“Yes.”

“You’ve been seeing him,” he says, confirming her suspicions.

“Does it matter?” Rey replies, trying to keep an air of indifference about her.

“Probably.” Poe clears aside some space on his desk, his elbows steepling to support his chin as he leans forward. “But I’ve got bigger things to worry about than late-night philosophical discussions with the enemy, so I’ll let it slide.”

A flare of indignance crops up in Rey’s chest— _he’s not the enemy_ , she nearly says—but she lets it pass. “I know you’ve propositioned him.”

Poe sighs. “The deal we’re crafting. I should have known he’d tell you.” He looks away from her, toward the corner of his office. “But I suppose we can use this to our advantage. Does he seem… interested?”

“He seems resigned,” Rey replies in earnest. “He was expecting a trial, an execution. But even if he’s ready…” She looks down, picking at her fingernails. A blush comes to her cheeks unbidden. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s done living yet.”

When Rey looks back up, Poe giving her a sidelong glance, mounting suspicion growing in his gaze. “I don’t think so, either. He’s too useful to the Resistance to send off to a lifetime of prison. But every confession comes at a price; the deal we’re creating should be ample enough of an exchange.” 

“I don’t care what happens. Give him the deal, question him,” Rey says; suddenly she can’t find a reason to keep her truth to herself anymore. “Just let him live. Just let him be free.”

The words might be a mistake, judging from the stiff silence that follows them. Poe keeps still, his eyes trained soberly on her.

“You care about him,” he finally says, shattering the uneasy quiet between them. “You care _for_ him.”

There’s no use hiding it anymore. “Yes.”

Poe sits back in his chair, hands still poised beneath his chin. “I thought something had happened on the _Supremacy_ —between you two. You’re a strong Jedi, but it takes two to take down a Supreme Leader and his personal guard. We—high command, that is—figured you had help from within; it didn’t take long to conclude it was probably Ren himself.”

“I know him,” Rey says, hoping Poe hears the truth of her words. “I know _Ben Solo_. Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader—it’s just a mask he’d put on to keep himself, to hide from the galaxy what he truly is.”

“And what is that?” Poe replies, insistent. “A fallen Jedi, responsible for the disappearance and death of his uncle—your master? A spineless man standing by while systems are destroyed at the drop of a hat? You can’t ignore his crimes, Rey.”

“No,” she agrees. Poe must expect some pushback from her against his own anger, but finding none, he seems to dip back into faint attention. “And he doesn’t either. He’s guilty, Poe, he knows it. I just need to convince him to repent, to give the Resistance the information you need, and allow himself some forgiveness. Some clemency.”

Poe purses his lips, and switches gears. “He was a member of the First Order for years—according to Hux, he still is, as Supreme Leader. What makes you think he won’t lie, or keep his lips sealed about what went on there?”

“The First Order was never his home; he has no friends there.” _He has no friends anywhere_ , Rey can’t help but think. “He’ll confess; he’ll give you the truth you want, if I can convince him.”

“And you?” Poe says. “Why do you want this so badly? You care for him, I know this now, but your time on the _Supremacy_ was brief—there can’t possibly be a motivation for vengeance there.”

_There is,_ Rey thinks, a bit sheepishly; vengeance is hardly the Jedi way. _But not for me. For Ben, and for the people who hurt him._ “Vengeance is just one side of the coin,” she says simply, standing and turning to leave. 

“And the other side?” Poe calls after her.

She smirks, the corner of her mouth turning up ruefully as she says the word. 

“Redemption.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on twitter[@ben69solo](https://twitter.com/ben69solo)!!


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